The Proper Classification of Lovemaking
by Marianne Greenleaf
Summary: Harold and Marian have a heated interlude in the library three days before their wedding. Or, how to flirt using the Dewey Decimal System.


_November 1912_

As Harold Hill entered Madison Public Library on a beautiful Tuesday evening in late November, he was amused to see how lax his fiancée had become in her organization of the facilities, of late. Not only was there a heaping pile of books on the return cart, a surprisingly haphazard sheaf of papers was left strewn about the front counter. And Marian stood with her back to the disorder, gazing dreamily out of the large window that Harold had watched her through, once upon a time.

As much as the music professor wanted to go right over to his beloved and wrap his arms around her waist, he had learned a few weeks ago that surprising her like that in the library was a terrible idea. So he remained right where he was, and cleared his throat politely.

Marian immediately whirled around, her beautiful face lighting up like a Christmas display. "Harold, you're early!"

Indeed, he'd arrived a full forty-five minutes before he'd originally planned. Giving the librarian an incandescent grin as he bounded over to her, he admitted, "I just couldn't wait any longer to see my wife-to-be."

"I'm so glad you came early – you can help me close up right away," she said happily, after he gave her a brief but warm hello kiss. "There hasn't been a patron for at least three hours now."

As Harold followed her to the wide double doors, he openly admired the way the fabric of her gown flowed so becomingly around her lithe figure. Today, Marian was wearing a pleated wool-twill wrap skirt of striking green and gold tartan, paired with a crisp white blouse. Out of both necessity and inclination, the music professor had always been a man with an eye for detail, and it was the little accessories of this getup that made her ensemble even more fetching – a matching tartan bow at her throat that he ached to untie and an ornamental sash and buckle combination on her hip that he itched to unlace. There was also a buckle on her waist that looked to be far more functional… and therefore even more tempting to undo.

When Marian locked the doors and turned to face Harold with a smile, he swiftly schooled his features into an expression of benign affection. While their wedding was only three short days away and he no longer had any compunction in giving free rein to his long-held fantasies about the lovely librarian, he didn't want to frighten her off by looking _too_ rapacious for the honeymoon.

But it seemed that he wasn't the only one who was eager for what was to come. "Oh, Harold," she sighed, clasping his hands in hers and fixing that sweetly earnest gaze on him. "You don't know how muddled I was that afternoon you stroked my palm and quoted Romeo and Juliet to me. As soon as these doors closed and you couldn't see, I cherished the spot your lips touched my hand." The most charming blush suffused her cheeks. "I've wanted to tell you this for so long."

Fighting the inclination to press Marian up against those doors and pepper every inch of her with kisses, Harold gave her a crooked smile. "Well, it's probably for the best that I didn't know any of that till now." When her face started to fall – clearly, she'd been hoping for a far more heated response to her confession – he tugged her back to the window they had been standing at before, twitched the drapes shut, and took her hands back in his. "I overheard you telling your mother all about your white knight, you know. The kitchen window was open, and I couldn't help myself. That's why I came to watch you through this window. You muddled _me_ that day, my dear little librarian."

Her face lighting up again, Marian leaned in and kissed him. While Harold kissed her back just as deeply, eagerly, and enthusiastically, he kept his hands firmly entwined with hers. Alone together in a locked building, with their wedding only three days away, he had to do whatever it took to keep his hips from desperately seeking hers the way they had that night before the Halloween masque. Or that afternoon in the desolate cornfield.

Fortunately, Marian didn't seem to object to his forbearance. Her hands gripped his just as tightly and, when they finally parted to catch their breaths, she looked as dreamy and carefree as she ever did after they shared a particularly passionate embrace. When the librarian subsequently pulled him toward the book return cart, Harold relaxed a little. But he tensed right back up when they passed the very bench where he'd once tricked her into tumbling on his lap, as he not only remembered the warmth of her backside against his thighs, he craved it to the point where he was actually considering a repeat performance of that maneuver. And from the sly, sideways smile his beloved was presently eyeing him with, he knew she was remembering his bold advances with the same sense of yearning.

Once again, Harold managed to divert them from going down such a dangerous path, while still being wildly romantic. With a nimble hop, he leaped up onto the bench and held out his hand to Marian. As she let out a scandalized giggle but nevertheless joined him, he compounded his audacity by bringing her to stand on top of the table. Then, before either of them could lose their nerve, he pulled her into a waltz that was much closer than he'd ever dared to dance with her before and crooned the song he'd once belted at the top of his lungs softly into her ear.

Marian laid her head on his shoulder and sighed. "I've never been this perfectly happy in all my life."

Harold buried his face in her golden curls. "Neither have I," he agreed, though if truth be told, he ached to unpin that chignon of hers so he could see her beautiful blonde hair cascading down her back. And he was still fighting not to close the small but crucial hairsbreadth of distance between their hips that he was scrupulously maintaining even as they swayed together in a rhythm far more intimate than they'd ever shared before. But despite the warmth of her affection, she was still very much a maid, and he was determined not to let the intensity of his own desire ruin this moment for her.

So he stood there as long as Marian allowed. Even in the midst of being in love, her sense of propriety soon reasserted itself, and she brought the music professor back to solid ground before so much as five more minutes passed. As she industriously sorted the contents on the return cart and loaded the dumbwaiter full of books, he idly perused the nearest piece of paper on the front counter, which happened to be a Dewey decimal classification chart.

"I'll reshelve the books upstairs first, and then come back downstairs to put away these volumes," she decided. At that, Harold promptly followed her up the spiral staircase. Once they arrived to the dumbwaiter – which was still creaking slowly but steadily upward – Marian turned to him with the most delicious gleam in her eye.

"You wouldn't happen to have any marshmallows while we're waiting, would you, Professor Hill?"

More than willing to play this delightful little game with her, he chuckled and felt around in his pants pockets. "Unfortunately not, Miss Marian, but I _do_ have a peppermint."

Pulling out the candy, he fed it to her directly. She was still too much of a maid to take his fingers seductively in her mouth, but she did kiss his thumb sweetly as it lingered over her lips. Harold was just as charmed and aroused by her gesture as if she'd been the most experienced of lovers. Cupping her cheek, he leaned in and kissed her softly, just as he had that heated summer evening. But this time he remained standing there, savoring this hard-won closeness as she finished the sweet he'd given her.

After Marian swallowed the last of her peppermint and turned her attention back to the pile of books, Harold escorted her to the ancient history aisle. As she rather nervously completed her reshelving, he stood reassuringly but not overwhelmingly close to her, as silent and steady as a sentinel. Someday, he'd make much better memories with her in this remote and dusty corner, but now was not the time.

Indeed, as soon as the librarian was done in this section, she grabbed the music professor's hand and exited the aisle with almost undue haste. Fortunately, there were no further unhappy recollections to weather after that, and the reshelving continued without a hitch. By coincidence or design, the two of them ended up downstairs in the drama section, where they shared their first real kiss in the library.

Here, Harold did not hesitate to flirt. And after looking at the Dewey decimal chart, he had just the thing. As the librarian put the very last book on the shelf, her back to him, he wrapped his arms around her waist. "Miss Marian, I hope you won't think I'm being untoward if I ask for help finding a book filed under 306.7."

She cocked her head coquettishly. "Institutions pertaining to the relations of the sexes, Professor Hill? Perhaps you would do better to request a book under 177, the ethics of social relations."

He grinned and turned her to face him. "Now, now, Madam Librarian, does 306.7 not also include marriage?" Quite honestly, he'd stopped reading the chart as soon as he came across that rather intriguing category – he'd heard that Melvil Dewey had a voracious appetite for the ladies, and this seemed to prove it.

"Marriage would be classified under 306.8," she primly corrected. An enchanting blush once again colored her cheeks. "Marriage _and_ family."

"Close enough," he ceded. Tightening his arms around her waist, he leaned in to kiss her. But his mouth had barely managed to brush hers when she whispered, "I'm sorry I was so cold to you."

Genuinely confused, he pulled back to look at her. "Cold? What do you mean by that, Marian?"

"That night in the library, when I gave you the de Parny book," she said sheepishly. "I've always regretted the way I so abruptly ended that wonderful kiss, as if it didn't mean anything."

"Oh," he laughed, relieved that nothing worse was amiss. "You needn't feel ashamed of that, darling, because I soon found out what it truly meant to you. You weren't being cold, you were being careful."

Marian smiled at his assessment, but her gaze was appraising. "Yes… like you're being tonight."

Harold swallowed. How was it that he always underestimated how much she noticed about him? Figuring he might as well lay all his cards on the table, he confessed, "I want you badly, Marian. So badly that I'd make love to you right now, if I knew without a doubt that you wouldn't regret it later. But I know you would, and I don't ever want you to look back on our engagement with anything but happiness."

Looking tremendously relieved, she exhaled sharply. "Why didn't you tell me that _this_ was what was bothering you?" She lowered her eyes and blushed redder than he'd seen her do since they first got engaged. "I was starting to worry that perhaps you were having second thoughts about marriage… "

His eyes widened in dismay. "Not a bit! I've never been so sure of anything in my entire life."

To his chagrin, she still couldn't quite meet his gaze as she asked, "And if we did get too carried away, would you still be so sure you wanted to marry me?"

Harold placed not one but two fingers under her chin and brought her to look at him. "Marian," he said with great feeling, "I'd want to marry you if you were the saddest and wisest gal I ever met. I just don't want to _make_ you into the sadder but wiser girl."

Marian's eyes flared with longing, but she didn't kiss him. Instead, she bit her lip and pondered, as if she was trying to solve a difficult mathematical equation. "If you kissed me the way you did that night, at what point would we have to stop before… well, before you wouldn't be able to?"

"A man can stop a lot further along than you think," he assured her. "Even mid-act, if he has to. But" – he swallowed again – "we're so close to the wedding that if we did get too carried away, it would be all too easy to rationalize seeing things through. People might raise their eyes at a baby that's a month or two premature, but not even a doctor could pinpoint one that's only three days early."

She nodded, her expression both pensive and yearning. His heart hammered in his chest. Whatever she ended up asking of him, right here and now, he wasn't going to be able to say no to.

"Harold," she finally said, "I love that you're a gentleman now, and I agree that we do need to keep some things sacred to our wedding night. But I didn't fall in love with you despite your passion, I fell in love with you because of it. And I would appreciate just a _little_ more of the man who didn't hesitate to shout how badly he needed me when the library was full of people… "

Letting out a _whoosh_ of relief, Harold crushed her to him and claimed her mouth in a kiss that was as deep and demanding as it had been at her front gate and in the cornfield. When his hips pressed eagerly into hers, she arched against him with a moan, as if she'd been waiting for him to hold her like this all evening. While he didn't go so far as to undo the bow at her collar or the sash at her waist, he fingered the little buckle at her hip and tugged at the sash so her skirt hitched up ever so slightly…

But even though Marian melted so beautifully into his embrace, she either didn't know or thought it best not to curl her leg around him. And in return, he refrained from running his hands over her backside and pulling her even tighter against him. He realized that it was more than enough for his fiancée to feel just how hard he was for her and, as she was wearing a much thinner garment than her Marie Antoinette gown or her overcoat, he knew she felt him more fully than she ever had before.

It was admittedly difficult to end such an ardent embrace, but not impossible. When the clock chimed the top of the hour, they let go of each other with a wistful sigh. "Mama's expecting us for dinner," Marian said as she smoothed her disheveled skirt and hair back into place once more. "We can't keep her waiting too much longer – she'll scold us if we do."

While Harold nodded and followed the librarian out of the aisle, he wasn't quite done canoodling with her yet. When they reached the bench near the counter, he sat down and impishly pulled Marian into his lap, regarding her with a gaze that wasn't predatory, but just intent enough to be exciting. And it worked – she not only remained seated, she wrapped her arms around his neck and shared another ardent kiss with him.

They stayed ensconced this way for a full fifteen minutes, until the clock chimed again. Marian let out that wonderfully throaty laugh of hers, the one that never failed to hit him below the belt, as they parted a second time. "You're a terrible influence on me, _Mister_ Hill," she teased.

"And you've made me a far better man than I ever thought I could be, Miss Marian," he averred. To prove his point, he kissed the spot where his diamond solitaire rested on her finger, lifted her gently to her feet, bundled her into her coat, and decorously offered her his arm as they left the library. As they walked along in companionable silence, Harold reflected that this was almost the last circumstance that he would get to address her as _Miss Marian_ – unironically, anyway, because he planned to occasionally call her this even after their marriage, as part of the charged banter they would no doubt continue to enjoy even after they'd gotten to know each other better beneath the sheets.

In the meantime, however, he'd have to refrain from showing up to the library so early. As wonderful as their interlude was, Harold didn't think either of them had it in them to keep from going even further, should they find themselves so alone again before their wedding. It was a damn good thing they were getting married in a few days, because he was running out of places he could safely take Marian. And given that she welcomed his caresses with an increasing avidity that was starting to border on downright impatience, he was also running out of reasons why he ought to restrain himself. Lingering too long at the library was now out of the question, as was strolling to the footbridge, the faraway field, or the alcove at Madison Picnic Park. Even the music emporium was a chancy notion, as he had an office with a door that could be locked and a sofa big enough for two. He chuckled inwardly when he once again realized just how much he'd changed, and how wrong he'd been about love before – this was by far the most adult romance he'd ever engaged in.

So for the time being, Harold took solace in what he _could_ still do, and reached up to cover the slim hand resting on his arm. Although they were both wearing gloves, he felt Marian shiver pleasantly when he ran his fingers along the inside of her wrist, and she nestled even closer to him as they meandered along River City's avenues at a lovers' pace. Even though they were running a little behind, he anticipated being able to steal at least a kiss or two on her porch before they had to go inside. And he'd get her alone there again one more time after that, when he finally had to say goodnight.

But the first part of these hopes was promptly dashed when, almost as soon as they rounded the corner to the Paroo front gate, Winthrop threw open the door and regarded them with boyish petulance. "Profether! Thithter! You're late for dinner _again_."

Harold chuckled and flashed the boy a cheeky but contrite grin. As much as he loved the lad, Winthrop was an eloquent reminder that he and Marian had another very good reason to abstain until their wedding night – there would be a guarantee of at least nine whole glorious months alone together before they needed to endure such endearing interruptions in their own home. And during that halcyon interval, he would make certain they explored each and every facet of relations between the sexes that could possibly fit under the 306.7 classification.

"Three more days," the music professor murmured as he escorted his wife-to-be up the porch steps.

"Three more days," she echoed wistfully, right before Winthrop reached out and dragged the two of them into the house.


End file.
